Demystifying People Analytics Adoption: Insights from Italy

People analytics is a new and rapidly developing field that revolutionises the way organisations and their leaders comprehend and influence their workforce. Scholars have highlighted the importance and potential of developing people analytics research as a sub-discipline of Human Resources Management (HRM) so that the former could benefit from drawing upon knowledge created in this literature as it develops into a more mature academic field. Following such recommendations, in this study, we consider people analytics as an emerging stream of established e-HRM research and aim to investigate specific configurations of the adoption of people analytics. Specifically, we empirically explore the existing approaches to people analytics adoption, including HR technologies and/or data types used or planned to be used. The data for this study comes from an online survey involving a sample of 104 Italian Human Resource (HR) managers. From a theoretical perspective, this exploratory study represents the first attempt at an empirical analysis of the application of people analytics with a specific focus on Italian companies. It also confirms the configurational approach as a valid method to explore different types of people analytics and their determinants. From a managerial perspective, the study provides insights into the relevance of the various organisational contexts in which people analytics is adopted. Finally, the chapter also opens avenues for more theoretically informed and empirical studies on people analytics in different contexts.